Artists turn to textiles as they excavate history at Nada New York

"Rosas, a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Tijuana and settled in San Diego, returned to textiles during the pandemic. "She started working at the kitchen table at home using what she had: her sewing machine," Luis De Jesus says. "She uses thread like paint." That process marked a return to a mode of survival long practised among the women in her family. Rosas painted on paper and then used her sewing machine to embroider on top, drawing from imagery taken from Mexican codices depicting life during colonial first contact."

"On JO-HS's stand, Osipova likewise employs textiles to excavate history, printing family photos onto fabric to create wall-hanging, sculptural works. The creation of this fabric, originally from the Chuvash region, is a way of exploring the culture that existed in the region before it was Russianised."

"For Lafuente, the use of textiles is a way of commenting on labour inequalities in the era of globalisation. Lafuente used scraps from the cutting-room floor of the designer Oscar de la Renta to create the patchwork design that Filipinos use to make rags. This features on Lafuente's kinetic sculpture Waiter (Kain Na!) (2025), which references the Filipino service industry-the Philippines' largest export-and is priced at $16,000."

"Elsewhere, artists use textiles to illustrate personal histories. On Voltz Clarke Gallery's stand, Ruth Owens tells a story of belonging and migration in a series of paintings set in lightboxes made of different patterned textiles, ranging fr"

Many stands at the New York fair present multimedia works focused on culture and belonging, with textiles playing a central role. Keith Lafuente uses textile scraps to comment on labor inequalities tied to globalisation, creating patchwork linked to Filipino rag-making and presenting a kinetic sculpture referencing the service industry. Polina Osipova prints family photographs onto fabric to form sculptural wall hangings, using textile origins from the Chuvash region to explore pre-Russianised culture. Griselda Rosas returned to textile work during the pandemic, using a sewing machine and thread to build embroidered layers over imagery drawn from Mexican codices about colonial first contact. Other artists also use textile-based materials to convey migration and personal histories.

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